Workplace stress: A
workplace stressor is any stimulus in the workplace that produces the stress
response.

The four main sources of workplace stress are:

To investigate whether work place stressors, such as
repetitiveness, machine- regulated pace of work and high levels of
responsibility, increase stress related physiological arousal and stress
related illness.

Procedures:

High risk group of 14 ‘finishers’ in a Swedish Sawmill. Their job was to finish off the
wood at the last stage of processing timber. The work was:

Machine paced, Isolated, Very repetitive, yet highly
skilled and the finishers’ productivity
determined the wage rate for the entire factory.

The 14 finishers were compared with a low-risk group of
10 cleaners, whose work was:

More varied, Self paced, Allowed more socialising with other workers

Levels of stress hormones (adrenaline and
noradrenaline) in the urine were measured on work days and rest days.

Records were kept of stress related illness and
absenteeism.

Findings:
1.Finishers secreted more stress hormone on work days than rest days and more than the control group.
2.FInishers had higher rates of stress related illness than the low risk group.

Conclusions:

A combination of workplace stressors- especially
repetitiveness, machine pacing of work and high levels of responsibility-
lead to chronic (long term) physiological arousal. This in turn leads to stress
related illness and absenteeism.

If employers want to reduce illness and absenteeism in their
workplace what should they do?

A02 Evaluation

Name: One problem with research into workplace stress is that it fails to control extraneous variables.Explain: Research into workplace often fail to control important variables like personality type. It may be the case that persons with type A behaviour are attracted to demanding and stressful jobs. Apply: Therefore it may be that personality type leads to health problems not low job control.

Name: A second problem with research into workplace stress is that it fails to consider individual differences in the response to stress.Explain: It is apparent that in Eastern Europe there is a link between low job control and stress related illness is apparent, however not everybody who is in a stressful job is experiencing illness.Apply: This means that the findings of western research do not consider the individual coping styles and social support networks in the response to stress.

A02 Supporting evidence

Marmot et al (1991) Investigated the relationship between job control and stress-related illness in 10'308 male and female (aged 35-55) civil servants.Over a period of three years the participants were observed and asked to complete self-report surveys.Job control was measured through the completion of self-report surveys and by independent assessment of the work environment by personnel managers.Records were kept of stress related illness.It was found that participants who reported low job control were four time more likely to die of a hear attack than those with high job control. In addition to this they were more likely suffer from stress related illness (eg. cancers, strokes and gastrointestinal disorders)The association was still significant even after the eliminating other factors, such as job position and life style risk factors (diet and weight).Conclusion:

Low job control is associated with high stress

It is the employers responsibility to ensure job control.

High job control will lead to higher quality and greater productivity and improve the general well being of the workforce.